WASHINGTON — The day after the 2016 presidential election, UK comedian Tom Walker scored a viral video hit with his take on what Hillary Clinton did wrong and how Donald Trump won.
On the latest edition of Variety‘s PopPolitics on SiriusXM, Walker, who plays reporter Jonathan Pie, says that he fears that many late-night comedians and Trump detractors need to shift tactics in taking on Trump.
“Satire needs to be braver. What I try to do is go, ‘Look, people on the right and Trump are wrong, but the manner in which the left are trying to defeat that is also wrong. Tactically wrong,” he says. “And they need to talk more about policy and they need to start talking to their opponents if they are to persuade them to vote differently next time.”
He adds, “I am in no way a Trump supporter, but I feel like a lot of people who don’t like Trump are still going, ‘How did he do it?’”
Walker is touring the U.S. this month with his show “Jonathan Pie: Back to the Studio,” and he says that he’s had the chance to talk to a number of Trump supporters.
“The majority I have spoken to are smart. They are up on policy. They are not bigots. They are not stupid. They are not racists,” he says. “And if we are to stop Trump from winning a second term, or doing well this midterm, you have to start talking to people you disagree with. You have to persuade, rather than just dismiss their opinions as bigoted. We get a lot of that in the UK with Brexit.”
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Listen below:
‘On Her Shoulders’
Alexandria Bombach talks about her documentary “On Her Shoulders,” which profiles activist Nadia Murad, the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, as she tries to draw attention to the crisis of the Yazidis in northern Iraq. In 2014 she was kidnapped from her hometown by ISIS and held for three months before she escaped. The movie looks at what she went through to draw international attention: Telling and retelling her painful story of sexual assault, hoping that the media’s focus will lead to UN action.
Also: Nikki Schwab of the New York Post and Mary Murphy of USC Annenberg talk about President Trump’s response to the pipe bombs sent to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and some of his critics…Brian Steinberg chats about what went wrong with Megyn Kelly at NBC News.
And: This was our 200th episode of “PopPolitics.” Thank you most of all to my producer, Charla Freeland, for making this all possible and for having nerves of steel, and thank you to SiriusXM, Variety, all of our guests, and most importantly to our listeners.
“PopPolitics,” hosted by Variety’s Ted Johnson, airs from 2-3 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s political channel POTUS. It also is available on demand.